SELF-SABOTAGE AND SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
SELF-SABOTAGE: THE ART OF SNATCHING DEFEAT OUT OF THE JAWS OF VICTORY.
SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY: THE ART OF WILLFULLY STRUCTURING EVENTS TO MANIFEST A PROJECTED OUTCOME.
It isn’t enough that we have to battle the rest of the world, we have to battle ourselves. And often we are not only our greatest critic, we are our worst enemy. We treat everyone else in the world--including strangers on the street--with more dignity and compassion and respect than we treat ourselves. Why is that? Why is it that everyone else deserves more and better and kindnesses and considerations that we feel we don’t deserve?
A huge part of it is due to upbringing and what we have adopted or has been forced upon us as appropriate conduct and social behavior. We’ve all heard some form of:
Be modest. Be humble. Be unassuming. Don’t get a big head. I made you, I can break you. You owe me. If it weren’t for me, you’d be nothing. I don’t care what you think, in my house, you’ll do as I say. Pretty is as pretty does. Never brag, it’s bad form. Don’t blow your own horn, toot your own whistle. You do you think you are? If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.
Loser. You can’t do that. You’re too __________ (fill in the blank).
Think back through your life. This goes back further: (color inside the lines; be seen, not heard; don’t cause a stir). What putdown or well intended behavior sapped the confidence right out of you? Made you feel small and insignificant? Hopeless? Helpless? Clueless or unworthy? Like a victim?
These types of things happen to all of us. Often, they were well intended and not meant to impact us they way they did, but they do. (Remember that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well partly, no doubt, it got to be an often-repeated saying like this.)
Words carry power. We know that. And that definitely includes words spoken to us about us. Ones that impact us strongly, we carry with us. They help form and shape our opinions, our esteem, our behavior and our beliefs. We believe we can, odds are we can. We believe we can’t and we never will--and we will make that true because we believe it to be true. That’s self-fulfilled prophesy. And often to make it happen, we embrace self-sabotage.
An Example: An author has been writing one type of book for years. The market for that type book is dwindling and her editor recommends the author write a different type of book and makes several suggestions. The author refuses--and when contract renewal time comes around, author is told publisher will not be offering a new contract.
Author refused for any of a number of reasons. Didn’t like the type of books suggested. Had no interest in shifting to a new type novel. Feared change. Feared losing her existing reader base. The point is, regardless of the reason the author is now without a publisher.
A more blatant example: An author goes to a conference and at a luncheon complains to a table full of people about her publisher. An editor for that publisher is sitting at the next table and overhears her house being raked over the coals. Said editor reports this tongue-lashing in a public forum to author’s editor. How how enthused is said editor to work with said author?
We all take wrong steps. We try something that doesn’t work. We write something that doesn’t resonate. We plan and set expectations based on the information we have available but that information proves faulty. These are mistakes, yes, but not ones where we have through our own arrogance or ignorance or fears or other personal issue-based actions, shoot ourselves in the foot and cut ourselves off at the knees.
The discretion errors are most frequent. Or, I should say, the lack of discretion. Over the years, I’ve seen more authors sabotage their careers by exercising a lack of discretion than anything else. A little story to keep in mind:
Author A wrote for an Editor at a publishing company.
Author A had some very nasty things to say about another writer to Editor.
Editor spoke very little and formally--cautiously--to Author A because Author couldn’t be trusted to be discreet.
Author A was offended by Editor’s distance and had some very nasty things to say to Editor about it, then promptly went to the Editorial Director and asked to be assigned to a new Editor.
The request was refused.
Author A left the Publisher and wrote for a New Editor at a New Publisher.
Before Author A’s first book with New Publisher came out, her New Editor left the New Publisher for employment at a third Publisher.
New Publisher hired a replacement: Editor from Publisher.
So now Author A is with Original Editor at New Publisher. The Editor she said some very nasty things to and asked to reassigned away from.
Small world, publishing. And Editors move around to move up. Author A is in a tough spot. One she put herself in because of her lack of discretion. Net: self-sabotage. Can she recover: probably only if she looks for and secures a New New Editor at a New New Publisher.
Life would have been so much simpler for Author A had that author just be discreet.
Self-sabotage isn’t only seated in esteem and confidence and negative issues. It can also be seated in fear. Like the fear of success.
People driven by a dream will just about kill themselves to hit benchmarks that define for them success. They’ll climb the ladder, struggle and sacrifice and put in super-human effort to get up to the next rung. Their goal is in sight. They’re almost there. Almost to the pinnacle that has occupied their hopes and dreams and cost them so much and now--now they’re---
scared to death and decide they may not really want it, or that they definitely do not want it.
Suddenly unthought of facets come to life:
✦If I make that sale, people are actually going to read what I write. They might hate it, have ugly things to say about it--about me. I could be embarrassed, humiliated, rejected.
✦If I make that list, people are going to expect so much out of the book. What if it disappoints them. What if they bad-mouth me and it? My family, friends, everyone I know will hear all about it. I’ll look like a fool, an idiot. I could be hurt. My kids could be hurt or embarrassed or humiliated. Rejected.
✦The last book did so well. What if this one bombs?
✦I am going to be judged. I could be found wanting and/or rejected.
See how these things all tie back to self-esteem and image? Your perception of who you are and your place in your world, and in the worlds of others?
We all want to be loved and accepted. We all want our work, which is an extension of us, to be loved and accepted.
And it’s hard to open ourselves up for not being loved and accepted. But the simple fact is this:
Some will love and accept us.
Some will hate us and reject us.
And some will be indifferent.
Of all these things--think about this--indifference troubles us most.
Why? Because it jerks our chains and feeds those little nags in us that says we and what we are doing are insignificant.
You can go into broader analysis, but in my experience, when you do and then you dive deep, it takes you right back to this place. Maybe you need the journey to feel sure of that. Maybe you can take the word of one who has journeyed and taken that journey with many others. Regardless, you do need to grasp the reasons we sabotage ourselves and take constructive steps to resolve the underlying issues. Understand them. And stop doing it so that you can fulfill your potential.
How do you do that? There are many ways, I’m sure, but one I know works is by knowing what you need. And that will be the topic in Mistakes We Make, Part 8.
Blessings,
Vicki
© 2007, Vicki Hinze
Showing posts with label mentors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mentors. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Friday, September 08, 2006
QUALIFICATIONS? None . . . Yet
Warning: this is a no-edit zone....
I came across the following quote this morning:
"A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." --Walter Bagehot
It made me smile. Why? Because it sent me back in time. Not literally, of course, but in my mind. I thought of the first job I had in a legal office. The senior partner was a state representative named Dempsey. I well remember our first meeting.
I had started work there and he'd been away; congress had been in session. So I'm at my desk, and this strange man walks into my office. He has a bright, sunny smile, a welcome and "I'm glad to be here" attitude. "Hi," he says. "And who are you?"
"I'm Vicki Hinze," I said. "And who are you?"
"Dempsey," he said. "And what are your qualifications?"
I didn't recognize the senior partner's name. Didn't expect to see him there, and the name just didn't connect. "I don't have any," I said, thinking this visitor was certainly impertinent, asking me a question like that. The horrible thing was that it was true. I didn't have any qualifications for doing the job I'd been hired to do. But I'd told them that if they'd take a shot on me, I'd work hard and learn; they had my promise on that.
Dempsey clearly hadn't been alerted to that promise. He gave me the strangest look and a long, pregnant moment passed. "Well," he said. "That's blunt."
"Unfortunately, it's true, too."
"Do you want to learn?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. The light bulb had finally clicked on, and I realized I was talking to the head honcho, and I was nearly certain he was going to show me the door.
We talked for a few minutes more, and then he looked me in the eye and said, "Never again are you going to have to tell anyone you have no qualifications."
I didn't know what to say. What can you say to a man who makes you that kind of promise?
Dempsey put me in the office law library and for the next six weeks, he paid me to study. At the end of the day, we'd talk about what I'd studied, and he--and the other partners and associates--would answer my questions. They had a project: me. And the firm's objective was to educate Vicki.
I learned. Boy, did I learn. And eventually I taught other attorneys how to handle real estate property closings, escrows, trusts, title challenges. I acted as an agent for a corporate computer giant in an acquisition it made, and for the U.S. in its acquisition of property for the environmental protection of an endangered species. Commercial transactions and personal injury, liability cases--all manner of things once alien to me.
They brought in a CPA to teach me accounting, so I could audit the books. They brought in insurance underwriters to teach me the significance of their rules and regulations. And then Dempsey asked me to read proposed legislation that came through to him for consideration and to do a one-page opinion report, pro or con on the proposition.
I was in heaven. It had to be heaven. Me, a political junkie, with a congressman's ear and he would hear my opinions? Not just hear, but listen? Picture me elated.
When I told Dempsey I was expecting a baby, he said, "Well, we'll build a nursery and get a nanny and you can be with her as much as you like."
No one was doing that in those days. No one. But, as surely you've noticed, Dempsey didn't follow the pack. He did things his way, and his way helped people to become better, wiser, and stronger. He didn't give you a fish. He taught you how to fish--and gave you the bait to put on your hook.
I would have worked there until he or I died of old age. But my husband was active duty military and he got orders. Dempsey offered me law school, to fly my husband home on weekends--all manner of things--but in the end, we knew it had to be family first.
I've seen Dempsey many times since then, and thought of him many, many times more. His determination to help a young woman get qualified literally changed my life.
He was a wonderful mentor--not just in terms of work but in terms of being a good human being. I learned a lot from him. Helping others. The power of having faith in someone, in investing in them. How that seed of faith can spur them to tackle other challenges. Like college. Like writing books. Like any of the thousand other things I've done that without the confidence to try I might never have done.
My father taught me not to fear failure; it's a natural part of growth, like exhaling when you breathe. Can't inhale without exhaling, too; your lungs would explode. (See the balance? Can't have success without failure. Doesn't work.)
Dempsey taught me to define specific objectives and then aggressively pursue them.
Both men looked out to others and in to themselves. They lived by strong codes of ethics--their own--and with integrity, doing what they felt was right and important in their daily lives.
Both men had good hearts. And that's why Walter Bagehot's quote triggered memories in me and I'm for the millionth time sitting here feeling a bit awestricken and incredibly humble.
It is a great pleasure in life to do that which others say you cannot. Not for the mere sake of defiance--there's no glory in being outside the box for the mere sake of being outside the box--but for the sake of greater purpose. Because greater purpose is served in the accomplishment that can only be reached by being outside the box.
At one time, Dempsey, who'd had polio as a kid and carried the challenges from it, had been told what he couldn't do. He could never qualify. He disputed it, and did it anyway. He failed his way to success. And then he extended a hand to others, and I was so lucky to be one of them.
He never mentioned to me that he'd learned the lessons he taught firsthand. I learned that from his partner, and that there were others like me, that he'd taken on to help get qualified in one way or another.
If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that. His insights were too perceptive for an outsider, so to speak. I did once ask him why he was doing all this for me. He just smiled.
As time passed and I matured, I realized why Dempsey did all he did. Many times, I've imagined him looking at me with a knowing twinkle in his eye and that cocky pitch in his voice. "Why am I doing this?" He softly chuckles. "Because I can."
I've never again had to tell anyone that I have no qualifications. I have Dempsey to thank for that. He kept his promise.
I've tried to play it forward. In the years since, I've tackled many things that were new to me (and will continue to do so, I expect, until I die). The thing that makes people (or characters) frigid and afraid to try new things is fear. They feel inadequate, inferior--unqualified.
But what Dempsey taught me that they might not know is this: When we first try something new, we are ALL unqualified. and the only way to get qualified is by doing it.
So why worry and why wait? Jump in and get started. If you screw up, well, you're exhaling. Learn from it, take your next breath and press on. Get qualified as you go.
And if someone should ask, "What are your qualifications?" Tell them the truth: "I don't have any . . . yet."
You might be talking to a Dempsey.
Or if you're the one asking the question?
Consider becoming a Dempsey.
Reshaping a life is no small thing. Your immortal mark is made in the hearts of those you help. And so inspired by you, through them, your ripple goes on.
And that's what's on my mind this morning...
Blessings,
Vicki
Vicki Hinze
Writing: Web Blog
Radio: Web Blog Listen
www.vickihinze.com
www.everydaywomanradio.com
I came across the following quote this morning:
"A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." --Walter Bagehot
It made me smile. Why? Because it sent me back in time. Not literally, of course, but in my mind. I thought of the first job I had in a legal office. The senior partner was a state representative named Dempsey. I well remember our first meeting.
I had started work there and he'd been away; congress had been in session. So I'm at my desk, and this strange man walks into my office. He has a bright, sunny smile, a welcome and "I'm glad to be here" attitude. "Hi," he says. "And who are you?"
"I'm Vicki Hinze," I said. "And who are you?"
"Dempsey," he said. "And what are your qualifications?"
I didn't recognize the senior partner's name. Didn't expect to see him there, and the name just didn't connect. "I don't have any," I said, thinking this visitor was certainly impertinent, asking me a question like that. The horrible thing was that it was true. I didn't have any qualifications for doing the job I'd been hired to do. But I'd told them that if they'd take a shot on me, I'd work hard and learn; they had my promise on that.
Dempsey clearly hadn't been alerted to that promise. He gave me the strangest look and a long, pregnant moment passed. "Well," he said. "That's blunt."
"Unfortunately, it's true, too."
"Do you want to learn?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. The light bulb had finally clicked on, and I realized I was talking to the head honcho, and I was nearly certain he was going to show me the door.
We talked for a few minutes more, and then he looked me in the eye and said, "Never again are you going to have to tell anyone you have no qualifications."
I didn't know what to say. What can you say to a man who makes you that kind of promise?
Dempsey put me in the office law library and for the next six weeks, he paid me to study. At the end of the day, we'd talk about what I'd studied, and he--and the other partners and associates--would answer my questions. They had a project: me. And the firm's objective was to educate Vicki.
I learned. Boy, did I learn. And eventually I taught other attorneys how to handle real estate property closings, escrows, trusts, title challenges. I acted as an agent for a corporate computer giant in an acquisition it made, and for the U.S. in its acquisition of property for the environmental protection of an endangered species. Commercial transactions and personal injury, liability cases--all manner of things once alien to me.
They brought in a CPA to teach me accounting, so I could audit the books. They brought in insurance underwriters to teach me the significance of their rules and regulations. And then Dempsey asked me to read proposed legislation that came through to him for consideration and to do a one-page opinion report, pro or con on the proposition.
I was in heaven. It had to be heaven. Me, a political junkie, with a congressman's ear and he would hear my opinions? Not just hear, but listen? Picture me elated.
When I told Dempsey I was expecting a baby, he said, "Well, we'll build a nursery and get a nanny and you can be with her as much as you like."
No one was doing that in those days. No one. But, as surely you've noticed, Dempsey didn't follow the pack. He did things his way, and his way helped people to become better, wiser, and stronger. He didn't give you a fish. He taught you how to fish--and gave you the bait to put on your hook.
I would have worked there until he or I died of old age. But my husband was active duty military and he got orders. Dempsey offered me law school, to fly my husband home on weekends--all manner of things--but in the end, we knew it had to be family first.
I've seen Dempsey many times since then, and thought of him many, many times more. His determination to help a young woman get qualified literally changed my life.
He was a wonderful mentor--not just in terms of work but in terms of being a good human being. I learned a lot from him. Helping others. The power of having faith in someone, in investing in them. How that seed of faith can spur them to tackle other challenges. Like college. Like writing books. Like any of the thousand other things I've done that without the confidence to try I might never have done.
My father taught me not to fear failure; it's a natural part of growth, like exhaling when you breathe. Can't inhale without exhaling, too; your lungs would explode. (See the balance? Can't have success without failure. Doesn't work.)
Dempsey taught me to define specific objectives and then aggressively pursue them.
Both men looked out to others and in to themselves. They lived by strong codes of ethics--their own--and with integrity, doing what they felt was right and important in their daily lives.
Both men had good hearts. And that's why Walter Bagehot's quote triggered memories in me and I'm for the millionth time sitting here feeling a bit awestricken and incredibly humble.
It is a great pleasure in life to do that which others say you cannot. Not for the mere sake of defiance--there's no glory in being outside the box for the mere sake of being outside the box--but for the sake of greater purpose. Because greater purpose is served in the accomplishment that can only be reached by being outside the box.
At one time, Dempsey, who'd had polio as a kid and carried the challenges from it, had been told what he couldn't do. He could never qualify. He disputed it, and did it anyway. He failed his way to success. And then he extended a hand to others, and I was so lucky to be one of them.
He never mentioned to me that he'd learned the lessons he taught firsthand. I learned that from his partner, and that there were others like me, that he'd taken on to help get qualified in one way or another.
If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that. His insights were too perceptive for an outsider, so to speak. I did once ask him why he was doing all this for me. He just smiled.
As time passed and I matured, I realized why Dempsey did all he did. Many times, I've imagined him looking at me with a knowing twinkle in his eye and that cocky pitch in his voice. "Why am I doing this?" He softly chuckles. "Because I can."
I've never again had to tell anyone that I have no qualifications. I have Dempsey to thank for that. He kept his promise.
I've tried to play it forward. In the years since, I've tackled many things that were new to me (and will continue to do so, I expect, until I die). The thing that makes people (or characters) frigid and afraid to try new things is fear. They feel inadequate, inferior--unqualified.
But what Dempsey taught me that they might not know is this: When we first try something new, we are ALL unqualified. and the only way to get qualified is by doing it.
So why worry and why wait? Jump in and get started. If you screw up, well, you're exhaling. Learn from it, take your next breath and press on. Get qualified as you go.
And if someone should ask, "What are your qualifications?" Tell them the truth: "I don't have any . . . yet."
You might be talking to a Dempsey.
Or if you're the one asking the question?
Consider becoming a Dempsey.
Reshaping a life is no small thing. Your immortal mark is made in the hearts of those you help. And so inspired by you, through them, your ripple goes on.
And that's what's on my mind this morning...
Blessings,
Vicki
Vicki Hinze
Writing: Web Blog
Radio: Web Blog Listen
www.vickihinze.com
www.everydaywomanradio.com
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